Chem136: Advanced Biochemistry

Homology modeling, protein folding, misfolding diseases such as Alzheimer's disease, spectroscopic tools for structural characterization, carbohydrates and their role in cell signaling and drug design are few of the topics that will be covered in this course. Bio/Chem136 is an extension of first semester biochemistry (Bio/Chem135). This course covers selected biochemistry topics in depth and places significant emphasis on reading and discussing biochemistry research articles. The format of Chem136 will primarily consist of student-led group problems and discussion of readings from texts, review articles and research articles.

This semester the Chem136 lab features a semester long project on the purification and spectroscopic analysis of the enzyme lysozyme. Each student will gain direct, individual experience developing a purification scheme, performing kinetic analysis, and investigating the structure using several advanced fluorescence techniques.